Tag: Saddam

George W. Bush’s paintings do not reveal anything about the Iraq War, despite our wishing that they did; absurdly, the main argument against gay marriage is the state’s supposed need to regulate procreation; meanwhile, the entire Senate voted against Social Security cuts and the media said nothing. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Moqtada al-Sadr is back, issuing an ultimatum to American troops and contractors: Leave Iraq by the end of the year or he will revive his Mehdi Army and relaunch attacks on the United States’ post-withdrawal presence in the country.

The world is far more complex than our childish vision of good and evil. We as a nation and a culture have no monopoly on virtue. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when viewed from the receiving end, are state-sponsored acts of terrorism.

According to Ron Suskind, former Wall Street Journal reporter and best-selling Bush critic, the White House ordered the CIA to fabricate evidence linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida and knew before the invasion that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. The White House denies the allegations, published in Suskind’s new book, “The Way of the World.”

Iraq will be plunged into a new war if Israel or the U.S. launches an attack on Iran, Iraqi leaders have warned. Iranian retaliation would take place in Iraq, said Dr. Mahmoud Othman, the influential Iraqi MP.

The war is over for now in Sahar al-Jawari’s Baghdad neighborhood, but life is still a struggle. An American soldier encourages her not to be pessimistic, but it’s hard to look on the bright side while supporting a family by selling off your jewelry.

Is some of what we now consider common knowledge about the run-up to the Iraq war wrong—for example, that we were deceived about the U.S.‘s reasons for invading Iraq? Former Pentagon official Douglas Feith, who has been harshly criticized for his involvement in that process, thinks so—and he has a new book to make his point. Here he faces Jon Stewart and his “Daily Show” audience to talk about it all.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has asked his neighbors to forgive his nation’s debts: “Iraq cannot alone shoulder the debt arising from the military adventures of (Saddam Hussein’s) regime.” Hey, he might be onto something there. Maybe the U.S. should take the same approach with China after Bush is gone.

That idiotic “what, me worry?” look just never leaves the man’s visage. Once again there was our president, presiding over disasters in part of his making and totally on his watch, grinning with an aplomb that suggested a serious disconnect between his worldview and existing reality.

George Piro, the FBI agent who spent nearly seven months interrogating Saddam Hussein, tells “60 Minutes” that the late Iraqi leader didn’t think the U.S. would actually invade and didn’t deny having weapons of mass destruction in order to intimidate Iran. “He told me he initially miscalculated ... President Bush’s intentions,” Piro revealed in the interview, which airs this Sunday.

When it comes to setting an exact timetable for withdrawing American forces from Iraq, some Democratic candidates are more forthcoming with the details than others. Take John Edwards, for example, who told The New York Times about his ambitious plan to bring nearly all U.S. troops home within 10 months if he is elected president.

So, Musharraf, treated ever so respectfully by George Bush throughout his administration, has turned out to be just another crummy dictator. But he was our dictator, kind of a modern, even westernized one who could stand up to all those bearded Islamic terrorists. Well, not exactly.

Historians may one day debate Rudy Giuliani’s recent preposterous comments at a New Hampshire town hall meeting. “Did he mean it?” they might ask. “Or was he just dehydrated?” While addressing voters, the candidate said that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were debating whether to invite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Osama bin Laden to their inaugurations. But wait, there’s more.

If you’re a Truthdig reader, chances are you’re also a BBC News reader. For 10 years now, the BBC has done an excellent job of bringing online news to the world. To celebrate, it has pulled together important online front pages from that period, ranging from the Clinton impeachment to 9/11 to the hanging of Saddam.

As the U.S. government is learning much too late, democracy is not a one-size-fits-all application that can be lifted from one culture and grafted onto another. Here, UK reporter Ian Black from the Guardian Unlimited takes a look at what’s really going on politically and culturally in Iraq according to a prominent historian and his Iraqi contacts.

Chances are pretty darn slim that this is President Bush’s favorite cover model moment: Canadian magazine Maclean’s whipped up quite a provocative picture for its latest cover story, which makes the claim that “a desperate Washington is reaching out to the late dictator’s henchmen.”

Truthdig is pleased to present these two excerpts from the novel “Caspian Rain” by Gina Nahai, best-selling author of “Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith.” In “Rain,” her fourth novel, Nahai explores Iran’s complex culture through the eyes of a group of memorable characters living in various sectors of society during the years leading up to the Islamic Revolution.

Providing a sharp retort to President Bush’s Iraq war update speech on Thursday, Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei laid into Bush for his war policy and his administration’s aggressive stance toward Iran during Friday prayers, opining that Bush will be tried in an international court for his part in the Iraq debacle.

Saddam Hussein was a ruthless tyrant, but he had help from his friends, including powerful world leaders and wealthy businessmen. Former “60 Minutes” producer and “Web of Deceit” author Barry Lando wonders what embarrassing revelations might have emerged had Saddam’s trial—and those of his associates—been more interested in truth than execution.

Four years ago, President Bush delivered his now-infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech aboard the carrier Abraham Lincoln, declaring that military aggression was a successful and appropriate response to the alleged threats posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime. Judging by the current situation, Bush might do well to pick a new slogan about the war in Iraq.

Exhibiting either extreme administrative loyalty or just plain denial, Vice President Dick Cheney reiterated that there was a definite link between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show Thursday—the same day a newly released Defense Department report cast further doubt on that connection.

Many in the Arab media who supported the toppling of Saddam Hussein—and sometimes braved death threats to do so—now feel betrayed by the incompetent policy that followed: “It’s a success story for al-Qaeda, a success story for autocratic Arab regimes that made democracy look ugly in their people’s eyes.”

This week, our collection of Truthdig-flavored videos includes a clever political satire of lonelygirl15; a gripping documentary on Saddam Hussein’s American backers; and everyday U.S. citizens exposed at their most clueless.

Adding to a growing chorus of disapproval emanating from Europe, Tony Blair’s official spokesman has said Saddam Hussein’s execution “shouldn’t have happened in that way.” Earlier, Gordon Brown, the man widely expected to be Britain’s next prime minister, said the hanging was “completely unacceptable,” calling it a “deplorable set of events.”

Saddam Hussein’s American nurse, in an interview with his hometown paper, revealed what life was like for the former dictator during his last years. He would save scraps from his meals for birds, tend to a patch of weeds and once asked why the U.S. had invaded, saying: “The laws in Iraq were fair and the weapons inspectors didn’t find anything.”

Saddam Hussein may be gone, but President Bush still has a souvenir he uses to titillate special guests: the pistol Saddam was carrying when he was captured. Like a child showing off his favorite toy, the president has been known to beam with delight when guests view the mounted weapon, which is held in the Oval Office.

This week’s collection of Truthdig-flavored videos includes a “Saturday Night Live” parody of Middle Eastern children’s television; a Media Matters collection of the most outrageous right-wing comments of 2006; and Jon Stewart’s take on Bush’s latest Iraq lunacy.

The grisly holiday hanging of Saddam Hussein has been greeted mostly with cheers from the media, but Truthdig editor Robert Scheer takes a different view, noting that even top Nazis, in the Nuremberg trials, received a far superior grade of justice.

This “Saturday Night Live” parody of Middle Eastern children’s television nails the cultural disconnect at the heart of America’s adventure in Iraq. Don’t miss the brilliant satirical commercials in this episode of “Saddam and Osama.” (h/t: Iraq Slogger)

It’s possible that even greater shame awaits the U.S. in 2007, apparently as early as next month. From the NYT: “An Iraqi appeals court today upheld a death sentence for Saddam Hussein in a decision that clears the way for his execution within 30 days, Iraqi officials said.”

Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity. Reactions to the verdict illustrate the sectarian divisions that have become so familiar in Iraq, with celebrations erupting in Shiite and Kurdish areas while some Sunni neighborhoods turned to violent protest.

A Senate report on prewar intelligence has concluded that there was no evidence Saddam had ties with Al Qaeda. This is yet another confirmation of what we all, sadly, already know—not only about the realities of Mideast tyrants, but about the realities of liars in the Bush administration. Also, there are new tidbits inside.

With a July 21 poll revealing that half the country still thinks Iraq had WMD, the Associated Press asks several experts why this myth persists. One answer: people tend to become “independent of reality.”This is not without historical precendent. Pictured above is Hiroo Onoda, a former Japanese army officer who was stationed on a Phillipines island at the end of World War II and who kept on fighting until 1974 because no one told him the war had ended.

Vanity Fair’s Craig Unger reports that the Italian Secret Service likely concocted the Saddam-Niger forgery to bolster Bush’s case for war. The article raises questions about the involvement of a prominent White House-connected neocon in the “black ops” campaign.